The research proposed is designed to investigate some roles that displays of emotion play in two types of interpersonal relationships, communal and exchange. In communal relationships, which are often exemplified by friendships and family relationships, members feel an obligation to be concerned about one another's welfare. Thus, they give benefits in response to each other's needs and desires. In contrast, in exchange relationships between strangers or people who do business with one another, members feel not special obligation to be concerned about one another's welfare. Thus, they give benefits either to eliminate past debts or with the expectation of receiving a comparable benefit in return. Since these relationships differ in terms of members' feelings of responsibility for one another's needs and since displays of emotion carry information about needs, the role of emotion should be quite different in these two types of relationships. Seven studies are proposed to test this general idea. Two test the hypothesis that people will be more likely to display emotion in communal than in exchange relations. One tests the hypothesis that displaying emotion will be perceived as appropriate and will increase liking in communal relationships but will be perceived as inappropriate and will decrease liking in exchange relationships. One tests the idea that in communal relations an emotional request will elicit greater compliance than a nonemotional request while the reverse will be true in exchange relationships and a final study tests the idea that people are more likely to strategically present their emotions to another in order to elicit help in communal than in exchange relations. Both experimental studies in which relationship type is manipulated and studies in which behavior in existing communal and exchange relationships is examined are proposed. The potential contribution of this research to understanding depression and anxiety in interpersonal situations is discussed.